


Tie a Yellow Ribbon For Me

by HMS_Gunner



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst?, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Someone was supposed to die, The other boys aren't mentioned, There's a drop of smut, There's something gang-related, Zayn appears halfway through, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HMS_Gunner/pseuds/HMS_Gunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It’s a surprise,” Liam explains. And in so many ways, it’s the biggest surprise of his life. His heart and gut twist itself into knots realizing how physically close he is to a moment he’s waited years to have. This is it, he believes, this is what all of the distance, the waiting, and the secrecy has led up to. This is his chance to explain.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tie a Yellow Ribbon For Me

It isn’t until he steps off the train and on to the platform that his heart races, that the creases of his palms sweat as his fingers grip the leather handle. On the way over, he supposes, it was the hypnotic blur of scenery that distracted him from his nerves – the farms dotting the land with blocks of color, three-bladed windmills twirling about in the distance pointed every which way, or the fields stretching endlessly until they met the horizon. He tries to piece together what seems familiar about it, but he never paid attention to the trees or the grass, not nearly as much as the people he abandoned three years ago.

If one looks at the platform from afar, he thinks, they would see a spot of gray where there should be color on a radiant, bustling canvas. Because as far as analogies go, he is a mismatched puzzle piece; a relic in the future; an anachronism in this era. The suitcase weighing heavily in his hand is a symbol of that. It tells of point A to point B and of all the time which passes in between and spills not a minute outside of it, trapping memories between two letters in order to preserve what will never come again.

It says that _was_ Liam, but asks _is_ that Liam?

Three years feel no different than a day to him but he knows that everything has changed in minute yet drastic ways, the sum of all the little things which are known by names such as coincidence, serendipity, or chance. The place he’s just left is already changing without him, time there flowing on whether or not he exists in that area, and he’s entering a new bubble, a meek voice within him praying that it doesn’t reject him like an allergic reaction. Still, he hopes and clings, perhaps irrationally so, that the world here is as it was when he, long ago, stepped on a train heading the other direction, uncertain if he would ever see this part of his life again.

So, really, this is point B to point A drawn in a line for the very first time.

He draws a deep breath, and somehow, his legs are carrying him past the trains and toward the heart of the station itself. The breaths hitch in his throat as he nears the familiar sounds and sights. Passersby crisscross and weave in front, behind, off to the side, all carefully avoiding him as he walks toward a place he knows, just not the time it’s in. His eyes quickly scan over the line of stores before him, and his heart dips a touch. A new clothing store with flashy letters now sits where there used to be a watch shop, and the small crafts shop has given way to a bookstore. They have been replaced, and he wonders to what extent he’s been replaced as well.

Eventually, he approaches the doors, or rather they approach him it seems, and dread fills his heart up to the brim until it pours out into his bloodstream and seeps into his fibers. He looks back at the veritable chasm he’s crossed and wipes his hands on the front of his trousers. No turning back now, he breathes to himself. Because if not now, then never.

\--

Even in the shade of the awning, the early afternoon light adds stifling warmth to the already hot day. The humidity clings to him and it makes it harder to breathe than it already is. The air, however, smells the same, and he thinks himself a tad hopeful at that. It still sinks down and weighs into his lungs, the nostalgia rousing a dull, droning ache, and he can almost see his childhood forming before him on the streets past the sunbathed steps, the same ones he ran up and down as a kid with his mom’s hand around his.

The lump in his throat burns with uncertainty and apprehension, and even as he trots down the steps, blasted by the sweltering heat, he still holds an arm out to flag down a taxi. One jerks to a stop before him, and a short, old man in a loose shirt jogs out to pop the trunk. Liam sets his suitcase in the back and takes the seat up front. He tugs at the collar of his shirt once both doors are shut, letting the air conditioning wick away the growing film of sweat, and tries to swallow the mass of fear building up, in spite of the fact that it clings like grease to skin.

“Where to, kid?”

The question hangs in the air, waiting for an answer to precipitate. Liam takes a couple of seconds to respond, one out of hesitancy, one out of forgetfulness. He looks over at the man in the baseball cap and quickly looks away before he mutters, “Uh, north. Past the hills.”

The cabbie eyes him questioningly but shrugs it off. “Just say when, kiddo.”

The car lurches out on to the road and Liam directs his eyes to the window. His heart is still punching the walls of his chest, but it’s softer now, and he thinks it’s because he’s confined to the cab, protected by the cage of metal and glass. He wonders why he feels the need to be protected at all when he’s the one who’s done the hurting, but he knows he needs to feel safe, for whatever reason.

He shouldn’t be surprised that the fixtures of the town have remained the same, yet it comes anyway with a smattering of relief. A small smile fights its way through the anxiety as he spots familiar landmarks, such as the fountain he dropped endless coins into as a boy, the weird looking statue still standing in front of the opera house, and the diner on the corner that he and his friends would hang out at after school. All of these places stir up distant memories and pairs them with nascent reassurance. It suggests that less has changed than he thought and it may give him a fighting chance when the time comes, even if the voice in the back of his head informs him that he’s deluding himself from the very reason he’s returned.

“So, where ya from, kid?”

The innocuous question, its syllables scratchy and worn like wool, tugs Liam from his thoughts, out from his meager shell of comfort. He keeps his gaze forward, however, to avoid looking at the driver.

“Here, actually.”

“Ah, a native. Just came into town myself. It’s quite nice here, innit?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, feather soft, “It is.”

The taxi veers off to a less congested road with a sharp turn, and memories conjured by steel and concrete fall away, yielding to rows of trees. Quietly, Liam lets out a pained breath and sinks into his seat. It physically hurts, how much he’s missed this place. The aching pools in his gut and swirls about until it settles into an icy corner and stays there.

“What’s with ya anyway, dressed like that?” The cabbie’s eyes wash over the boy, and Liam knows what he means. In a way, he stands out. His hair is buzzed clean and short, his jaw’s shaved smooth, and he’s donned a crisp gray suit, replete with a matching vest and a bright red tie. There’s a pause, and then, perhaps noting the tension in the boy’s body, the cabbie cautiously supplants, “Ya going to a funeral?”

Liam snorts, a wry smile leaving as soon as it appears. “No.” But, it might as well be, he wants to say. There’s a very good chance he’ll be saying goodbye today. Instead, he offers, “I’m seeing an old friend.”

The last word rolls of his tongue with uncertainty.

“Must be helluva friend,” the cabbie retorts, chuckling to himself.

A drop of water strikes the windshield with a sharp thwack, chipping away at the cabbie’s hoarse laughter. It’s shortly followed by another, and another, until the windshield is riddled with them. Ominously dark clouds appear from nowhere and march toward them. Not long after, the roads are black and slick with rain as lightning rips through the sky and thunder booms about. The wipers flick on and the cabbie mutters something about “fucking rain men” being unreliable, but Liam knows otherwise. It’s because he’s here that the storm has come. The allergic reaction is starting, and it rinses away any positive feeling that he might have had about this.

Civilization reappears, however, before Liam can have a full-blown breakdown, and it anchors him for the time being. A familiar spot of purple in the distance catches his eye and he perks up. It’s too hazy to tell with the downpour and the intermittent strokes of lightning, but he tells the cabbie to slow down.

“Can you pull over at that hotel? I’m going to drop my stuff off and come back out.”

“Sure thing, kid.”

The car stops by the small awning fluttering helplessly with the gusts. Liam and the driver run out as the yellow car idles, hunched over in a futile attempt to stay dry as the rain pelts them from every direction. The driver practically throws the suitcase at Liam once the trunk lid is popped, and he dashes in.

He tries to shake off the excess moisture, but his jacket and pants are thoroughly drenched. As he runs a hand through his short, spiky hair, returning a palm full of rainwater, he realizes that he’s never seen the inside of this place before, despite having grown up in this town. He’s never _needed_ to come here before, but, right now, it’s the closest thing he has to calling this town home again, even if he’s just visiting.

The interior is quaint and old, carved from wood that’s lost its luster over the years but the age is what puts him at ease, takes the edge off his turbulent thoughts. It’s silent and empty, save for his ragged breaths, and the receptionist, who looks like she’s witnessed the early days of its existence. She wears an easy smile and brightens when he steps toward her.

“Hi. I have a reservation for Liam Payne.”

She fusses with the computer a bit and says, “Ah, here you are, Mr. Payne.” She moves at a glacial pace, taking short, scuffling steps as she heads to the wall behind her, unhooks the appropriate key, and heads back to the desk. She slides it on to the counter with a wrinkled hand and locks eyes with him when he reaches for it. For a second, an undecipherable look washes over her, but she displaces it with another warm smile.

“Uh, thanks,” he mutters. Her eyes linger on his face, and he can feel them practically tracing the lines of his body as they move down, scouring them for familiarity, as he turns to head for the elevator. Whether or not she recognizes him, he doesn’t care, so long as no one else does. As he waits for the elevator to come, he casts a quick glance at the desk, and surely enough, she’s peeking over it with great interest, craning her neck to get a better look at him. He knows it doesn’t help, but he taps the ‘up’ button five times in rapid succession.

He hears shuffling, uncertain if it’s that of feet or a seat or both, and he goes stiff. The ‘ding’ comes, resounding through the corridor, and the doors part. Liam leaps through them before he can let the woman do anything, shuffling be damned. He finds the panel and repeatedly jams a finger to the button with the ‘5’ on it, breathing out only when the doors seal shut.

A few seconds pass before he realizes that the teeth of the key are digging into his palm, and he slumps against the back wall of the moving box, relaxing his grip, his heart pounding in uncomfortably large strokes. He asks himself if this is how he wants to return, to go entirely unnoticed with the exception of one person. Because that’s about the only thing keeping him here, that allows him to stay in spite of the overarching mismatch of time and place, where he’s a drop of oil in a vat of water. He questions whether or not that’s enough, to stay for one person and one person alone. Because that terrifies him.

The lift stops, the doors part, and Liam hesitates. It strikes him that he hasn’t had a place to call home in years, and that he’s lost sense of what a home is composed of. He’s lost the familiar faces of the place he left and the place he joined; he’s lost his place in their hearts; he’s lost the one thing that mattered. And all of that sets him afloat, and he feels as if he’s been flung high, high up, and he’s stopped for the briefest of moments, right before it proceeds to free fall. He’s stuck in that temporal sliver waiting, and he hopes to land on his feet.

And while he waits for that to happen, he reminds himself to breathe and find his room.

\--

Later on, having dropped off his things, he’s on the lift back to the lobby. The downpour since has intensified, a faint, vague chant of water and wind as the two slam against the hotel. Liam’s nervous, not that his heart rate hasn’t made itself known the entire time, beating on and on like the drum in a death march.

The lift doors open, and he pauses. He takes a moment to steel himself and this time, he jogs out. Or rather sprints. He passes by the desk in a blur, and he’s certain the receptionist is on the verge of stopping him, but he’s out of the door before she can even try.

Past the feeble-looking awning, nothing is clear. Liam can barely make out anything beside the hazy cab in front of him. He grabs a newspaper from the stand by the door and covers his head with it as he dashes toward the car.

“Keep heading north,” he shouts when he dives in, throwing his makeshift umbrella down. He slams the door shut behind him, and the taxi rolls off with an angry clank. The wipers beat furiously from side to side and the cabbie’s squinting hard. They move slowly through the torrent and the cabbie leans back a bit. He points to the ruined newspaper at Liam’s feet.

“Big day today, apparently,” he says, eyes still squinting at the road.

Liam glances down at the front page, curves and dips of it reflective with moisture, but the partial image takes only a fraction of a second to pluck at his heart. The endless scenarios he cycled through his mind in preparation for this day were still that, and he had not prepared enough. It hollows him, seeing the two faces so closely smiling at each other, knowing that one of them should be his. Maybe, he thinks, maybe he lost the right to think that, to claim himself as deserving of anything anymore, to be in the photo instead.

Maybe should has turned into could.

He’s sure the cabbie takes notice of the emotions swimming on his face, and he’s glad that he says nothing at all. He realizes that he’s fixating on the image, and Liam tears his eyes away in favor of the outside, where white sheets of rain fill his view. It’s all telling him to leave, to go back on the train and stay far, far away not for their sake, but his.

But, it’s not long now. He’s too close to quit. The car starts upon a hill, where many houses line the incline, each bright in color despite the ongoing storm, and Liam thinks that he could have lived in one of them had he stayed. If he could have, that is. Stayed. If he could have raised children and sent them to school, made them breakfast, watched them grow up and leave. But that’s a future long in the past now, and he’s certain no one except the one would care about a home and life that could have been.

As they near the town, passing under the wet, dense foliage, Liam finds himself sitting a little straighter, eyes peeled for any sign of the bell tower through the distorted, blurry window. He rubs his palms over the bends of his trousers, which have dried somewhat now.

“We gettin’ close?” the cabbie asks. Liam nods half-heartedly at the slight eagerness.

The taxi takes a dip and he can see the dense expanse of buildings, and in between the up-down of the wipers, he spots the copper domes, a vivid green from the years, and the orange-tiled roofs. The stone bell tower stands above them all with a solemn watchfulness. He traces the length of the building down until he can’t see more of it, and he checks his watch. There’s still time.

Time. He suppresses a laugh. The only thing on his side is the one thing which alienates him from this expedition. He wonders about _time_ of all things. What a strange concept to have been embraced by everyone, to have to worry about it, to know that it’s measured by light and numbers and revolutions, and yet it can’t be felt at all. It’s an entity which either exists because humans need it to or stands simply to be an indifferent measure of how insignificant everything can be in its wake.

Now, the question is, does he need it or does time not matter in this case?

By the time they’re in town, the rain has dwindled to a mild drizzle, and with it, his angst. Liam instructs the cabbie to stop at the side of the town center, demarcated by a circular road. In the center is a large fountain with mermaids and sea creatures frozen mid-dance under a continuous spray. He pulls out his wallet and pays the cabbie, who thanks him with a gruff handshake and wishes him well. Liam sneaks one last glance at the newspaper by his feet before stepping out, and he watches the taxi speed away.

The air is lighter and fresher, and the rain has sapped away most of the heat. It gives this section of town a glow, where all of the buildings are carved out of stone and history, and he feels the angst wane even more. A voice in the back of his head tells him that he can do this, and to no one in particular, he nods. He breathes it all in, and forward he goes, his muscle memory guiding his feet for him, placing one in front of the other in preordained steps. Liam checks his watch again to make sure he still has time, which he has plenty of, and he rounds the corner with his head tilted up, eyeing the centuries-old architecture dripping with the present.

It seems that three years isn’t enough time to change this place or his memory of it. He can practically trace the crooked cobblestones against the back of his eyelids, feel the memories tingling on the back of his neck and lips, and hear soothing, warm laughter wrapping around him. All of these recollections are tinged a bright, vivid yellow, much like the sun, and when he looks upon the soaked pavement, he supposes it’s fitting to see such sharp grays looking back.

A breeze blows by, carrying the murmuring of a crowd from up the street, and he knows he’s here, where he ought to be. The crowd comes into view, huddled under a cloud of black umbrellas, and everyone’s dressed as properly as he is. Behind them are the church doors and his chest tightens at the sight of them. He approaches as casually as he can, each step accompanying a slight surge in nerves, but no one pays much attention to him. Some cast a glance or two; most pay him no attention at all. One look at the suit, and he’s simply another invitee.

Easily enough, he waltzes right on through the double doors and he makes it in without fear of rejection. There’s no force field or divine intervention. No storm suddenly appearing. Nothing to tell him to turn around and turn away.

And past the threshold, it’s as if he’s stepped into another world, one where gray doesn’t exist. Warm mahogany paneling stands behind light blue hydrangeas arranged in porcelain vases lined down the hall, and a small smile, belying the immense triumph bubbling up within, finds its way to his lips at the sight of the petals.

Further down the hall, there’s a low chatter, and he decides, rather boldly, to ask one of the guests where the people of the hour are.

“It’s a surprise,” Liam explains. And in so many ways, it’s the biggest surprise of his life. His heart and gut twist itself into knots realizing how physically close he is to a moment he’s waited years to have. This is it, he believes, this is what all of the distance, the waiting, and the secrecy has led up to. This is his chance to explain.

One heel’s already lifting off in anticipation as the person gestures and points to where the groom should be and before they can even tell him where the bride is, Liam’s thanked them and run off.

Reality becomes hazy after that, like he’s floating through the hallway even though he can hear the slight echo of each footstep striking the tiles. Distance is meaningless, and the corners all blend into one seamless path. Left and right fall to the wayside as irrelevant descriptors because all Liam can see is point A to point B. Each step, each matching beat of his heart intones an inaudible rhythm of _forward_ , _forward_ , _forward_ and he almost misses the door because of it.

Three years have culminated into staring breathlessly at a plank of wood. Three agonizing years, which felt like waving a hand through the air, like trudging through a tar pit, like he’d never be able to breathe again, have passed so quickly and slowly by. And he can barely breathe now, heart pounding so hard it barely gives his lungs space to do their job. Three years stand only an arm’s length away.

Three years for a lifetime.

He gulps. The door squeaks open with a decisive twist and push on the knob. A small rush of dust swirls up by his feet as he steps in, caution heavy in his labored breath. The high that he’s riding, the one which makes him light and endlessly hopeful, vanishes as he looks around. It drops him and lets him plummet through his agitated thoughts, until his heart shatters on the floor.

The room is deserted and dark, and the three years he clung to leave him high and—

“Can I help you?”

Liam freezes. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand as chills ripple from his spine. The lilt in the words puts an ache in his heart and a flame in his throat. He knows the accent well, the nuanced cadence in the syllables, having spent countless days and nights listening to them, memorizing how it changed with his mood, softly watching the pink lips that formed those words. He turns around, and, in a second stretched by the imagination, it’s as if he’s seeing Zayn for the very first time. It fires up something deep in his gut and yet, it feels like a drink of fresh water soothing a parched throat, and he can’t get quite enough.

Somewhere out there in an alternate continuum, Zayn would be wearing a matching gray suit with the widest smile on his face, his tongue pressed behind his teeth. He would be wearing it for Liam, just as Liam is wearing his for Zayn. They would be standing at the altar hand in hand, reciting their vows before their families and friends. And he knows that during his speech, he’d cry as he looked into Zayn’s eyes. They’d kiss after the ‘I do’s with the crowd erupting into cheers and applause, and they’d live happily ever after. And if they grew old together, he’d want to die first so he’d never have to feel the loss or see Zayn do so.

But Liam blinks, and the vision shatters, switching from fantasy to reality like an old slide projector, and Zayn’s wearing a black suit instead.

In so many words, it still makes Liam’s mouth go dry how breathtaking Zayn is. His lashes still sweep a mile above his sculpted cheeks; his hair, soft or gelled, remains the darkest shade of black; and his eyes haven’t lost any of their limpid shine. And Liam finds that comforting, even if he knows that the comfort he feels lasts for only the shortest of moments.

Because how much Zayn has changed is worthy of mourning. The carefree energy brimming from his contours, the raw emotions worn on inked sleeves, the fire of his eyes that burned the spirit that Liam once saw and felt have all but left him. He looks as if a vital piece of him has been lost to the years, and Liam, in his spot not feet away, wants nothing more than to shout, “Here I am, I’m right over here.”

But silence happens instead in that second. Uncertainty paralyzes every inch of Liam, all except for his lips, which part slightly in a failed attempt to form words. Zayn is frozen as well, staring back with disbelief lacing his eyes.

Out of reflex or maybe a subconscious impetus to verify the moment, Liam reaches out and tries to cup Zayn’s cheek. But Zayn jerks away like he’s been slapped before contact is even made, and the clock goes on. He shakes his head slowly, too stunned to even find words, and he shakes it again more quickly to say that he has nothing to say. With a sharp breath, Zayn stumbles backward into a run in the other direction until Liam’s staring in silence at nothing but a vacant hallway.

There’s an almost audible _whoosh_ from the air Zayn steals from Liam’s lungs. And he crumples. Physically. Mentally. Sinks to his knees as a million emotions pull, push, and weigh him down. He looks at his hand, the same one Zayn had flinched away from, and just watches it tremble through wet, stinging eyes. What now? Has he become a monster? Has he invariably become an object of hate?

It makes sense now, with a twist of irony, that the muscle which beats in the middle of his chest wants to break out and run because it’s sensed the impending danger all along. It wants to save itself, to rip itself from the arteries, veins, and sinew which tether it down and flee far away so that neither it nor Liam can feel anymore. It’s worked too long and hard and it just wants to rest, to forget, to stop the bleeding.

Both hands gripping the doorjamb, Liam picks himself up, shard by shard. That sort of pinprick, icy numbness settles in his limbs, now that he has the answer to the question he had yet to ask. He feels like someone who watched their better half die, leaving him to be the last man on earth.

\--

When he returns to the entrance however long later, it’s absolute pandemonium, only he’s seeing it _and_ feeling it. All of the wedding guests are gathered about in the hallways instead of in the ceremony, chatting fervently and running around. It’s not like any ceremony he’s been to, unless the guests are gathering just now. As he nears, it becomes apparent that they’re not chatting happily. People are biting their nails, chewing their lips, and tapping their feet, not as though they’re all waiting for catastrophe, but rather like it already transpired.

Liam catches snippets of conversations as he moves forward, slowly piecing together the source of this chaos.

_Perrie’s in shambles._

_How could he do this to her?_

_They spent so much money! And for what?_

_Do you think he’s just nervous?_

_I can’t believe he ran._

The last comment repeats itself over and over until there are practically track marks in his mind. He squeezes past guest after guest, briefly catching sight of the weeping bride in her flowing white dress, and makes his way outside to the gray again.

\--

Somewhere on the outskirts of the city, Zayn is on a bed with his limbs spread out like a starfish. The clouded sun washes him in a soft gray light, coloring his hazel eyes a pale gold as they stare resolutely at the whirling blades of the ceiling fan, focusing just past it. The wheel-like movement hypnotizes him into a mild trance so he doesn’t have to think. Not about the pain. Not about the loss. Not about Liam. Who was alive. Is alive. Exists, present tense.

Liam.

 _Lee-yum_.

The two syllables loop over and over in his head, like an echo that refuses to quit. It flicks on the light switch and reveals all of the hurt that he buried as it tried to bury him. All the wounds that he thought had scarred over are freshly sliced open again. He thinks if he closes his eyes, he can still see and feel two brown eyes boring into him, reading every letter of his soul. And they did, once upon a time. They knew every word and paragraph by heart.

Zayn groans. He takes a deep breath, the dust thick in his nostrils, and tries to fall asleep.

\--

For a moment, Zayn thinks he’s woken up in the past. The acrid smell of coffee wafts through the air, accompanied by a low, whimsical humming. If he listens hard enough, he can make out the sound of meat sizzling on the frying pan. He smiles, because this is normal. Breakfast is being made on a morning he has off, and it all seems incredibly unchanged. However, he refuses to open his eyes, keeping them lidded in case none of this is real. His hands wander around underneath the covers, and maybe, just maybe, he feels the lingering warmth of another body that had slipped out only moments ago.

The low rumbling outside pushes him out of the momentary lapse and pries his eyes open. The sky blazes as lightning rips through the clouds, and the waves engulf him again. They plunge him down until he hits bottom, pinning him there until he has to gasp for air, drowning in reality.

He blinks slowly to adjust to the dimness, his limbs heavy with recollections, and he catches the inumbrated figure standing by the bedroom door out of the corner of his eye.

“How’d you know where to find me?” Zayn asks. The figure shifts and steps forward, letting out a low sigh as the lightning catches his face.

“I didn’t,” Liam half-whispers.

A short silence passes between them. Liam isn’t sure what to say. Subconsciously, at least, he never expected to come this far, to actually see Zayn again, nor did he expect to cause such bedlam. But here he is anyway. Cautiously, he leans against the doorjamb with his arms loosely folded across his chest and he waits it out. Waits for Zayn.

“What are you doing here, Li?” Zayn asks, voice surprisingly even. He keeps his eyes up at the ceiling fan while the question floats about. It’s heartbreakingly delicate, desperate, packed with immense hurt and longing in short, fragile syllables. A burst of light blanches out the room for a split second, followed closely by the chant of thunder.

“I came back,” Liam responds, face dipping into the shadows again. “I missed you.”

Zayn shuts his eyes tightly, ignoring the tacked on comment that stings and numbs, but he knows no matter how tight his eyes are closed, Liam is still a part of this reality. He is sharing this air, this space, this time, and Zayn doesn’t quite know how or why this is happening. His thoughts briefly fly to Perrie, whom he so unceremoniously left at the altar. It’s almost ironic that seeing someone he loved would hurt this much because he can’t remember a day when he woke up thinking that.

“Why?” Zayn mutters numbly. “Why now?”

“I thought I could say ‘hi’.”

“You can’t you say ‘hi’ if you never said ‘good-bye’.”

Liam dips his head and tries to stay collected. He deserves it. He deserves much, much more, if he’s honest with himself. But at the very least, Zayn’s talking to him, no matter how much the words bite.

“You’re a right bastard. You really are,” Zayn continues, opening his eyes. He turns to Liam and turns away. Liam slowly approaches and cautiously takes a seat on the edge of the bed close to the window. He hears the sheets rustling, and, without looking, he knows that Zayn’s curling his fingers around them in a vise grip, which he does when he’s anxious. But he doesn’t look. Not yet.

“The apartment hasn’t changed at—”

“Don’t. Don’t do that, Li,” Zayn warns. Liam sighs.

“Can I at least explain? What I can of it?” he feebly pleads. He glances behind him now, and sees that Zayn’s closed his eyes again. An agonizing moment passes. His heart is screaming and it only quiets down when Zayn nods ever so slightly against the pillow, loosening the knot in his chest.

Liam grips one hand with the other to stop them from trembling. He closes his eyes and tries his hardest to organize his thoughts.

“I, uh. I was in danger, believe it or not,” he begins. He glances quickly again at Zayn, and he thinks he’s listening. His eyes are open but still pointed up. Reluctantly, Liam tears himself away from the pools of pale gold and goes up to the window instead. He traces a fingertip down against the dusty window, racing a raindrop down.

“I saw someone die. Just. Stopped living. They stabbed him. Stabbed him five times before he stopped screaming. I couldn’t do anything. I just… I watched as they did it. And right before he died, he— he reached out to me. I thought he was grabbing at the air but then the other men turned and saw me standing there. They, uh. They didn’t do anything. They just… _stared_. I don’t know how long it took me to come to my senses before I ran.

“Two weeks after that, I got approached at work. This woman in this ridiculous suit dragged me outside and told me that she was with the government. She started telling me about all of these things I didn’t quite understand. She told me my parents were already relocated far away and wouldn’t tell me where. My sisters were flown off with them, and I just didn’t understand what she was saying. Why did I have to go?

“I didn’t believe her even after she showed me her badge. I thought it was some scam or con or whatever until she handed me her phone and my mom spoke to me. She said that I had to leave or else I wouldn’t be safe. I asked if I could take you with me, but she said it would be better if fewer people were involved. The next thing I knew, she sent me on a train headed west. She wouldn’t even let me leave a note. Trashed my phone, too.”

Liam looks at Zayn, who’s remained unnervingly quiet, and turns back to the rain and the wind.

“I wasn’t me for a while. I wasn’t Liam,” he goes on, voice thickening. “They gave me a new name and a new home. It was somewhere out west, somewhere obscure. They even gave me a new job. I worked at a frigging animal clinic.”

He laughs, but there’s bitterness lacing it.

“They didn’t let me contact anyone. Every time I tried, it was intercepted by some agent, and they warned me not to do it again. Eventually, I’d gotten so afraid that I didn’t try, no matter how much I wanted to,” Liam sniffles and wipes his cheeks. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He hears the bed creaking and turns around. Zayn’s sitting up, and he tucks his knees in to his chest.

“You always have a choice, Li,” he whispers. “Always.” It comes out in a soft puff but it hits like a punch to the gut, and Liam can feel his composure fracturing with each second that follows.

“Then…” he sniffles, “then I made the choice to keep you safe.”

“Bullshit!”

Liam freezes. The hairs on his neck stand on end.

“If you thought you kept me safe, you’re dead _fucking_ wrong!”

Zayn is seething now. He jumps up from the mattress and off to the other side of it, pacing around in small, tight circles. Zayn’s alight, his eyes lit and livid like an untamed wildfire, scaring Liam as they bore into him, but as quickly as the flames arise, they extinguish into streams of tears and a wavering voice that utters, “I needed you to rescue me. An– and y– you left. You think you did me a _favor_?! You might as well have killed me.”

He stops and bores his blurry eyes straight into Liam with a raised hand pointing straight to his own chest. The accusation is thick and indignant and Liam understands. He understands so well he tries his hardest not to disintegrate on the spot. He knows what it feels like to have a piece of one’s soul die, like he did on the day he left everything behind. Tears run down and along the sharp line of Zayn’s jaw, and he sinks back down on the bed, his back turned to Liam, and buries his face in his hands. He can’t look at Liam, not when it hurts this much.

“Do you know how everyone looked at me after you left? Do you? Because they all looked at me like I was _broken_ , like I was some deformed animal they took pity on,” he murmurs, his voice wavering.

“There were days – oh god – _days_ when I couldn’t remember what you looked like or smelled like. I started wondering if you were even real. I went mad trying to convince myself that you were. That you didn’t just vanish like some sort of mirage I got too close to.

“And the worst part of it, Li? I _was_ broken…You…” he cries, “ _You_ broke me.”

Liam wipes at his cheeks, trying his best to blink away the tears as they pour out. He strides over and kneels down so that he’s looking up at Zayn. He takes a deep breath and, as softly as he can, pries his hands away, but Zayn tries to resist and hide by shaking his head. He’s always hated letting Liam see him at his most vulnerable, and after all this time, nothing has changed. Liam leans forward until his chin’s resting in the warm nook of Zayn’s neck as sobs wrack the boy’s body, and damn it all, Zayn leans into it because he’s missed the touch, that memorized warmth that he’s yearned for one day too long. He curses under his breath, but Liam reaches his arms around and pulls them into a proper embrace. And when Zayn fully melts into it, Liam feels the full weight of today bear down, and he finally lets himself cry.

Zayn punches into Liam’s chest with a loose fist, so Liam pulls them tighter together and shuts his eyes.

“Damn it, Li. Damn it,” Zayn breathes out.

“I know, babe. I know,” Liam replies, not entirely sure what it is that he knows.

\--

The rain lets up somewhat and meek light returns to the afternoon. The two of them have taken to the bed, side by side, still fully dressed on top of the dusty covers, staring up at the ceiling fan. They’re all cried out. Their eyes are red and puffy, and there’s an unspoken agreement not to touch each other in any way, leaving mere centimeters between their arms.

“How’d you know I was getting married today?” Zayn asks, breaking the streak of tranquil silence.

Unhurriedly, Liam replies, “It was in the papers. I tried to keep tabs on you while I was gone without it being too obvious that I was. And then one day, your name popped up. _Local marrying daughter of town mayor_.”

Zayn hums contentedly.

“Did they catch the guys?” he wonders out loud.

“The guys?” There’s a pause, and then, “Oh, you mean… Yeah. The trial happened last year. It was expedited and they were sent off to some jail or other. But I was under watch for a few more months after that, so I couldn’t leave immediately. Believe me, I would have come earlier.”

Zayn hums again. He doesn’t miss the hint of irony.

“You put hydrangeas out,” Liam notes.

“That I did. I put them out as a way of saying goodbye.”

A silence settles with the confession. He wonders what Zayn bid farewell to, but he’s too afraid to ask. Maybe it was him.

“You kept the apartment,” Liam whispers.

“Yeah. Dunno why,” Zayn goes on, “I guess I kept hoping you’d come back.”

“Can I ask you something?”

There’s a slight stretch of time where Liam senses the hesitation before the reply comes out.

“Sure.”

“Why Perrie? I mean, why her out of everyone?” Liam asks.

Zayn turns his head to look out the window, where curtains of gray clouds glide by. Liam turns as well, and he barely catches Zayn whispering, “Because she’s the only one who reminded me of you.”

“Do you love her?” Liam breathes out. And he regrets it the moment he asks. Zayn gulps and after a moment, he opts not to say anything. Liam waits. He waits for Zayn to deny it, to say that even though he was to wed Perrie, his heart belongs to no one else. That his love for her was nothing but a simulacrum of the love he had for Liam. But it never comes. He closes his eyes, his throat suddenly thick with something hot, and rolls on to his side, facing the wall.

“Can you blame me?” he hears.

Liam shakes his head as he mutters an unsteady, “No.”

“Do you forgive me?” Liam asks, trying his best to keep his voice even.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Li. I don’t think I even know what to forgive. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you still love me?”

He shuts his eyes as tight as he can, somehow trying to will himself back to a time when the answer would be something akin to ‘Don’t be stupid. You know I do.’ He can feel a pair of hazel eyes burning into his back, but he can’t meet at them quite yet.

“I think…I think I always will. I do, yeah?” Zayn says, “But what we had? That’s never coming back.”

Liam lets out a pained breath, a tear breaking loose, running sideways down his face. The answer hurts in places he didn’t know felt pain, but he knows the feeling of truth slicing into him. He wants to think that he’s in the right time and the right place because Zayn is there on the bed lying right next to him. And he very much _wants_ to believe that this is meant to be a fairy tale resolution to those years of hell.

“I told myself—,” he swallows the lump in his throat, “I told myself for a long time that the last thing I’d ever want to see would be you. Because that’s all that’s keeping me here right now — you. And if I don’t have that…then I don’t know where I’d be or when.”

He feels a gentle hand on his arm pulling him so he’s facing the ceiling again. Zayn’s propped up on his elbow, looking at Liam solemnly. Zayn’s crying as well, wondering how he possibly has any tears left, but he does, and each one that pours out mourns the ‘almosts’, the ‘could haves’, and the ‘could have beens’. He cups Liam’s face with both hands and wipes away the salty trails with his thumbs.

“Then I’ll keep you here,” Zayn promises. “Okay?”

Liam nods a couple of times and shuts his eyes, blinking out more tears. Zayn nods back even though Liam can’t see it, and slowly, he leans down and touches their foreheads together. Hot, damp breaths puff out on his mouth, and he does what comes instinctually when it comes to Liam. He angles his chin down and their lips touch chastely before coming together again with more intent, warm and tender. Liam presses back until he’s sitting up. And before he knows it, Liam’s fisted a hand into his hair, pressing their bodies down until they’re flush.

But there’s a lingering hesitation in Liam’s motions. It hinders him, prevents him from letting go and embracing the moment. And Zayn senses this, countering it as he slides his lips along Liam’s jawline and sucks on his ear, drawing out a low moan. It says _we have nothing left but each other, we have nothing to lose_. Liam replies by kissing the pulse point on Zayn’s neck. _Then let’s start over_.

He sits back up to shed his jacket, breaking contact for the most fleeting of moments as Zayn does the same. Lightning dances through the clouds, and Zayn catches the light briefly tint Liam’s irises with the color of dying cinders. They pause as the clouds answer with rumbling, their breaths heavy and their lips pink and wet, and they know it’s the end.

“I love you, Liam.”

“I love you, too, Zayn.”

Zayn gently tugs Liam back down until they’re flat against each other, lips joined like they’ve never existed separately. And as much as Liam’s missed this – the heat, the nectar-sweet taste, the hunger – they all feel as familiar as yesterday.

Somewhere in between their fumbling back and forth, lips and tongues finding their way together over and over again, their shirts become undone, and before long, it’s simply skin on skin. And by god, the shock of it heats them both. Zayn flips himself on top, and only then does the lip-lock break. He peppers kisses down Liam’s chest and stomach and stops at a small spot of ink letter he’s never seen before. It’s just above the hip and—

“Z,” Zayn mutters before he can stop himself. The ashes of lost time form three zigzag lines connected at the corners, etched neatly into skin. Z for Zayn. Liam threads his fingers through the raven black hair, and their eyes meet. There’s an ardor that burns bright within them, an eternal flame flickering about, bright as the stars. Zayn thumbs over the initial, placing a kiss by it before surging up to meet his lips.

Liam’s large hands wander down his sides and find their place on Zayn’s hips. They dart toward the midline, undoing the belt buckle on his pants with ease, and Zayn waits as Liam undoes his own. And after that, it’s all a frantic blur.

Zayn presses deep. He rests his forehead against Liam’s, and this immense hunger wells up within as they take each other’s breaths in. Liam’s hands travel around to Zayn’s ass, pulling him down tighter until he can feel Zayn’s girth press against his stomach. They kiss briefly, the edges of their lips lingering close by, never fully breaking contact, before grinding their hips together. The raw friction jerks out a deep, guttural moan from Liam, and Zayn takes that as a cue to speed up.

Liam’s hands slip under Zayn’s pants, and Zayn gasps as large fingers wrap around him. He tugs, and Zayn rocks forward, suddenly needing more. Liam bucks forward, too. He pulls the waistband of Zayn’s boxers down and opens his grip until both of their cocks are in his hand. He kisses Zayn deeply, pushing apart his pink lips with his tongue and feels Zayn licking back. They settle into a slow, jagged rhythm, thrusting against each other. Zayn breaks off for a second to catch his breath, but Liam sets a hand on the back of Zayn’s neck and pulls him down again.

“Uh, f-fuck, I’m close,” Zayn breathes out.

Liam flicks his eyes open and bucks faster. He’s close too, and Zayn pulls away to suck on Liam’s neck, right by the small birthmark, and that’s all it takes to push both of them over the edge. Hot strings of cum spray out, mixing midair before painting their stomachs in long, hot streaks of white. Zayn trembles as the climax pulses through him. Liam quavers as he rides his out.

They remain motionless for a second as the high subsides. Zayn kisses the divot between Liam’s neck and collarbone and slowly falls on him, breathless and spent. The only thing he can hear besides the blood in his ears is Liam taking large, gulping breaths. And they lay like that, with sticky sweat in the folds of their skin and cum on their stomachs. A hand twirls its way into Zayn’s fallen quiff, and he lets the exhaustion sink in.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn whispers in to Liam’s skin.

“What for?” Liam breathes.

“For not waiting.”

Liam tries to look at Zayn, who instead buries his face into Liam’s chest. He kisses the top of his head and shushes him.

“There’s nothing either of us could have done,” he realizes out loud. He repeats it under his breath until the phrase sinks in. There really wasn’t. Zayn drags an arm over and slots his fingers with Liam’s free hand and grips tightly. He gulps and hums softly against his skin. A low melody ripples into the dusty air. It’s shades of quiet and slow and fills the crevices of the room with a sad hope. The words to the tune dance on Liam’s tongue, and when they come out, they come threaded on a frail string. His eyes flutter shut, as do Zayn’s.

_Hold my hand and we’re halfway there_  
_Hold my hand and I’ll take you there_  
_Somehow_  
_Someday_  
_Somewhere_

\--

Liam wakes for just a moment, and he almost thinks he’s woken up in the past. Because for the first time in three years, he can’t feel his heart. He can’t feel it scream or cry or hurt because it’s finally quiet like the moment after the storm, after the rain has thoroughly rinsed the earth, and as he peers out the window at the strokes of black painting the night, he feels like himself again. He feels whole.

This isn’t one of those dreams where he dreams of the past and wakes up in the present. Zayn’s still here, snoring into Liam’s chest with an inked arm draped across his body, and Liam smiles.

This is timeless. And he figures that the only thing worth having in life is back in his arms.

Timeless.

\--

“You can stay here, I guess.”

It’s more of a command than a suggestion, but Liam’s glad nonetheless. Despite all that he thought the day before, home has found him before he could find it. Now that he’s here, he feels complete and it feels slightly bizarre, no matter how welcoming or normal it may seem, and he thinks that given enough time, complete will feel normal again.

Zayn’s toweling off in the bathroom, and when he steps out, the morning light wraps him in such a way that it makes Liam’s heart skip, the same way it did the day he met Zayn. Zayn starts dressing himself, putting on only the pants and shirt.

“Where are you going?” Liam asks, still half-naked under the covers.

Zayn sighs. “I have to start over.”

He takes a seat next to Liam once he’s buttoned up and tries not to look as bittersweet as he feels, and all Liam can do is nod. When he woke up this morning, the full weight of his actions struck him. He realized that his return meant the departure of another, as if something bad had to happen in order for something good to take place.

The air remains undeniably tense, even as Liam slips an arm around Zayn’s waist and presses a kiss on his cheek. Liam doesn’t need to look to know that the gears in Zayn’s mind are grinding. He’s wondering whether or not he made the right choice, if any of this is correcting a mistake or making the biggest one of his life so far. And Liam gets it. He’ll always wonder _what if_ with Perrie and _what if_ with Liam. Choosing means forsaking. At the very least, Perrie will know why Zayn is leaving. Of course, there’ll be pain and there’ll be anger, but she’ll have something that neither Liam or Zayn would have – closure.

“Can I come? It’s probably not the best idea, but maybe she’ll understand if she sees me,” Liam offers.

“Maybe. I can at least keep an eye on you this way, make sure you don’t disappear on me again,” Zayn jokes. Neither of them laughs. Liam grimaces somewhat at the half-hearted attempt, and silence canvasses the room.

Zayn looks up when he feels a hand on his, and he hears, “Let me come.” Liam knits his brows together and squeezes their hands tight. He gives a look that says _I know, and I’m sorry_ , and the tension melts somewhat. With a sigh, Zayn nods and snuggles further in.

\--

That afternoon, they arrive at Perrie’s house. Zayn idles the car in the driveway and pulls out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. He’s understandably nervous, and he practically jumps when Liam places a hand on his arm.

“I thought you quit,” Liam recalls. Zayn hesitates for a moment. He stares at the cigarette before stowing it away, leaving the lighter out to play with. In a failed attempt to lighten the mood, he laughs shrilly, emanating nothing but nerves. Liam rubs circles with his thumb where he’s lightly gripping Zayn’s forearm, and Zayn calms down somewhat. Flush tints his cheeks when he admits, “I picked it up a few months after you left. Didn’t think it’d matter how long I’d live after that.”

Liam slips an arm around Zayn and whispers an apology, but Zayn brushes it off.

“I’ll try my best to stop though,” Zayn adds. He smirks and reassuring warmth settles over Liam’s heart. He leans in and pecks Liam on the lips.

Moments later, Liam’s in the car alone, watching Zayn climb up the cobblestone path to the door, and all the while, Zayn wonders about Perrie. When he woke up this morning and turned on his phone, he had about a hundred unread messages and an even greater number of missed calls. But not one of them came from the wife that almost was. And he wondered about why that was. Did she not care? Or did she know?

The door swings open before he can knock and he suppresses a wince. She’s a mess. Her hair’s lopsidedly undone and she’s still in her dress, possibly hoping that she could still put it to use. The tips of her fingers are dark with streaks of diluted mascara, and she glares at Zayn with eyes cupped by dark lines. He doesn’t move from the doorway. He simply stares with remorse burning in his throat. When he tries to meet her eyes, she looks away and turns to go back inside. Zayn lingers for a second before following, shutting the door behind him.

Perrie takes a seat on the armchair, crouched forward with a deadened look in her eyes. Zayn forces himself to look away, his heart lurching as if it pumped sludge instead of blood, and thinks of how best to explain himself.

“Liam came back,” he says after a few seconds.

She scoffs, looking down at the tiling, and folds her arms.

“Of course he did.”

Shaking her head, she goes up to the window. She parts the blinds with a finger and looks at the other boy sitting nervously inside the car. He’s got his lip caught in his teeth and his eyes are trained on the door. A rush of emotions swirl about in her mind, but none of them include hate or envy. And that surprises her because she should be filled with unimaginable rage and sorrow and betrayal. Because Liam’s the reason she’s not married to the man she loves. Or loved, is probably more appropriate, she muses. In fact, she feels like she intruded on something grand, that she’s the one who pushed against the flow when she pursued Zayn, and maybe it’s time to flow with the current rather than against it.

“It’ll always be him, won’t it?”

His eyes shoot toward her at the unexpected comment, but he doesn’t answer that because Perrie knows what he’ll say anyway. And when seconds pass in silence, she takes that as her answer and sighs, lowering her head and stepping away from the blinds.

“I’m sorry it happened this way,” she says.

The apology stabs him deep and the back of his eyes singe as tears come up. He did love her, and he hopes that she always knows that. None of this was fake, if she ever thought so.

“That’s supposed to be my line,” he rasps.

There’s a moment when he wants to reach out and feel her just one last time, but he can’t seem to read her anymore. She’s a foreign language, one lost to heartbreak and heartache, one that he failed to practice. He takes a shaky breath and wipes at the tears.

“You know, I didn’t think. I didn’t think love could hurt more than it could heal,” she whispers.

“I’m so–”

“I know, babe. I know. Maybe in another life, Zaynie.”

\--

(Two days later, he gets a letter from Perrie. She’s left for South America and she hopes he can move his things out before she comes back.

Zayn doesn’t let Liam know about the letter.)

\--

Liam’s jittering his leg up and down like a hummingbird’s wings. The only thing running through his mind is doubt. And he hates that it’s doubt when it should be elation, hope, and relief coursing through his body. After all this time, he’ll see his family again. He’ll get to see his sisters and his parents, and he’ll have all the people he loves again. But something doesn’t sit well with him, not even as Zayn keeps a warm hand on the small of his back.

When the warmth disappears, Liam looks up and notes that Zayn’s standing now, peering at something in the distance. “I think that’s her,” Zayn whispers. Liam adjusts his gaze forward and bolts upright. Zayn’s right. His mom is walking toward them with a suitcase in tow and two women are trailing behind, exuding a mix of anxiety and happiness. He doesn’t even get out the “Mom” stuck in his throat when she runs over and throws her arms around him.

“My boy! Oh, my boy, you’re alright!”

He melts into the embrace and earnestly wishes for the moment to last for years. There’s a whole mess of tears involved and when they finally peel apart from their embrace, Liam sees how the years have etched a few lines in to her face, denoting the years that he didn’t get to share. She steps aside, and he’ll be damned. The two women are almost unrecognizable as his own kin.

“Ruth, Nic,” he whispers, and the two of them tackle him in a hug as well.

“I’ve missed you, Liam,” Ruth whispers, while Nicola sobs.

All the while, Mrs. Payne’s crying in Zayn’s arms, loudly missing him and declaring how much she loves him like her own son.

“You’ve been alright, yeah? Your parents are well?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’ve been good. My parents are going to want to see you, sometime, yeah?” He sneaks a smile at Liam, who catches it before Mrs. Payne steals his attention again.

They’re so wrapped up in their reunion that they forget that they’re in the airport of all places, and they return to the apartment to continue the hysterics.

Mrs. Payne takes a seat on the sofa. Zayn heads to the kitchen to make some tea, and Liam and his sisters are catching up while their mom watches. She’s awash with happiness and nostalgia, but something’s amiss in the way she smiles at all of them, and Zayn eyes her pensively as he sets down the tray of tea on the coffee table and sits next to her.

“Thank you, dear,” she says quietly, taking a cup. Zayn glances over at Liam and his sisters and back at their mom, performing a mental head count, before realizing what it is she’s hiding from her son. She shakes her head gently, as if to say _Let me do it, he’ll want to hear it from me_. To drive the point home, she takes his hand in both of hers and warmly squeezes. His teeth scrape against his lower lip and he nods knowingly with his brows knitted painfully together.

The five of them have barely made a dent in the afternoon, and as they’re all laughing at some joke that Liam’s made, a look washes over him that tells Zayn and Karen the festivities won’t continue happily.

“Where’s dad?” he asks, still smiling. The simple question wipes away the smiles on his sister’s faces, and his mom falters, her façade cracking.

“Mom? Where’s dad?” he repeats, his smile fading now.

“He… He’s not coming,” she says.

“Ah, is he busy?”

“Li… he’s not coming back because… because he can’t,” she replies.

“I d- I don’t-”

Liam looks to his sisters and back to his mom, catching the sullen gloom in their expressions, and when his gaze meets Zayn’s, he reads the answer from his eyes. He glances back at his mom who solemnly nods. A large wave hits him then, and he feels like his stomach’s been ripped out and guilt is replacing the void. His mom catches it surfacing in his face, marked by how he turns his lips and how his Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows, and his sisters, recognizing the signs too, each take a hand of his.

“It was his heart,” she whispers. “It gave out.”

“H-how long ago?” he asks, voice thickening.

“Half a year after we left. The doctor said it was a miracle he lasted as long as he did.”

Liam mutters something under his breath, which Zayn manages to catch only by reading his lips – _I didn’t get to say goodbye –_ and then he’s burying his face in his hands, sobbing into them. Zayn wipes a tear away, trying his hardest not to let the moment tap into the last few years of his life, so he looks away.

\--

The Payne women cook dinner that night, and Liam’s taken shelter in the bathtub, trying his best to hide himself from the pain. All it does, however, is to distill it until it pours out, flowing down his cheeks, blocking everything else out. He barely registers Zayn coming in and taking a seat on the edge, not until he feels thin fingers card through his hair. It steadies him, this feeling, and he takes a deep breath.

“I keep thinking of what we could have done together,” Liam whispers. “I keep wondering and I– I– just–”

He chokes out another sob and Zayn presses a kiss to the top of his head. Liam presses his face against Zayn’s knee and cries.

“I wonder if I ever made him proud,” Liam asks.

“Li, you _did._ Don’t ever question that,” Zayn softly counters, “He was as proud a dad as any of them. He raised someone good.”

“Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“We’re going to go see him one day,” Liam states, wiping sloppily at his eyes with his forearm. Zayn strokes the back of his head and leans down to kiss him on the forehead. There’s a deep exhale, and Liam rests his head against Zayn’s thigh.

“Dinner’s about ready. You should eat,” Zayn says, even though he knows eating is the last thing Liam wants. But Liam raises himself up so that they’re at eye level and presses a light kiss to Zayn’s lips. He wraps his arms around Zayn and takes a deep breath.

“Let’s go eat then,” Liam murmurs.

\--

The Payne women leave at the end of the week. They go back to their lives, having left this one behind. Coming back from the dead is a task unto itself, they’ve all learned, but they don’t do it alone. Karen leaves all of their contact information on a jump drive and hands it to Zayn right before they take off in the taxi heading for the airport.

“There’s a message for Liam from Geoff,” she says. Before she takes her seat in the car, she kisses Zayn on the forehead and smiles softly. “You’re my son too Zayn. Take care of each other.”

When the car pulls away, Liam forces himself to stay rooted to the spot until after it’s disappeared around the bend because he knows he’ll chase it until he can’t. He feels like he’s uttered one too many farewells in his lifetime, and although this was only a temporary one before the next hello, he just didn’t want to say it yet. Hurriedly, he dabs his face dry, grateful that Zayn keeps a steady hand around him until he’s ready to go back in.

\--

(They watch the video together. Liam cries throughout it all, burying his face in Zayn’s chest. Zayn doesn’t let him see that he’s crying too.)

\--

They’re in town, hand in hand, walking around as if nothing had transpired between point A and point B. The strange thing is, people pay them no attention. After all this time, Liam thought that people would have stared or gossiped something fierce, but he’s glad that he can walk around with no hindrance and no recognition, and when he looks at Zayn, he does so with ease. There’s no more apprehension, no more wondering if he or Zayn made the right choice. Four months in, everything feels absolutely normal again, and the days trickle by without effort.

But sometimes, Liam will feel the edges of reality distorting, like none of this has actually happened, that somewhere, somehow, he’s living in a pleasant dream that’s bound to end abruptly like the edge of a cliff. It sets off a wave of anxiety each time the thoughts storm in, but then he looks down at the hand tightly holding his, and the feeling goes away.

For Zayn, too, there are times when something similar happens. He’ll gasp awake in the middle of the night and scramble to find Liam, only to remember the large arms wrapped loosely around his waist. He’ll count to ten, calm down, and pull himself tighter into Liam’s embrace before falling back asleep.

He squeezes Liam’s hand tight to remind himself this, right now, is as real as can be, and drags him into a café which had opened up last year. He’s gesticulating wildly about how great the drinks are as he leans the door open, and Liam just watches with a dorky grin, simply loving the bright, red flame that pulses life into Zayn. They reach the counter, where Zayn orders two of whatever it is he’s raving about, and Liam people watches. He and Zayn grab a table by the window, and he’ll be damned. The drink is perfect.

For the most part, they chat about the time they lost. It’s less painful now to talk about it. They carefully dissect around the more sensitive topics, such as Zayn’s engagement to Perrie and Liam’s sudden departure, but one day, they’ll get there. Zayn talks about everything that’s changed, somehow knowing every last detail of gossip and history, and the places he wants to take Liam to. Liam responds with his time away, about all the animals he’s treated, the people he met, and how one day, they could get a dog of their own. The suggestion lights Zayn up with a wide smile before he blushes and glances out the window in a failed attempt to hide his excitement.

And it works. It all clicks as if all the gears needed were a bit of grease.

A hearty laugh cuts through the air. Liam’s doubling over at some silly pun that Zayn’s made when he spots someone eyeing him from the other side of the street. The man’s walking with his hands in his pockets, and his eyes are firmly locked onto Liam. There’s a flicker of recognition that flashes within them, and it sends a chill down Liam’s spine. He pulls his gaze away, grateful that Zayn doesn’t notice the slight lapse, and they continue walking with their arms twined, passing the stranger. All the while, Liam feels two eyes scouring his figure.

By the time they’re home, however, the sinking feeling in Liam’s gut has vanished, and they’re in bed, tossing pieces of clothing away, one by one, until they’re under the covers, giggling into each other’s skin.

\--

The next week, Liam decides that it’s high time he find a job, even if the apartment’s been bought by Zayn in full. Zayn peers up from behind the newspaper he’s half-heartedly skimming and finds Liam gathering his things.

“But babe, I can pay for us both,” Zayn half-whines. With an exaggerated frown, he folds the paper up and sets it on the coffee table.

“What if I wanna spoil you? Let me at least do that,” Liam lightly counters. He walks over and bends down, placing a soft kiss to his nose. He looks Zayn directly in his eyes and brushes a thumb over his cheek and jaw and kisses him chastely on the lips for added measure.

Zayn smiles brightly and nods somewhat convincingly and lets him go. He watches as Liam disappears behind the door, and for the first time since they reunited, he feels comfortable letting Liam go. He feels more or less reassured that Liam will return.

He heads to the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal before he realizes that they’re out of milk. Which is fine, because when he opens the pantry, he notes they’re also out of cereal. And just about the rest of their groceries. Zayn sighs and gathers his things before heading out as well.

He makes it downtown in record time, and as he nears the grocery store, he spots Liam standing in the distance. This must have been one of the places that he’s applying to, Zayn figures, and he decides to sneak up and surprise him.

But the weird thing is, Liam is just standing there. From behind, he looks tense and has his hands before him, and he isn’t going in the store at all. And that’s when Zayn hears it. It’s metal clicking against metal. It’s faint, even in the white noise of the afternoon, but it’s there. He slows down as he nears, and he can pick up the banter being exchanged. Liam’s nervous, it sounds like, and it’s only getting worse. Zayn keeps on, slowing down further until it’s almost a crawl.

“P– please, I don’t know what you want from me,” he hears.

“I remember you,” someone else says. It’s cold, vicious, dead. “You’re that boy who watched us kill old McIntosh’s boy. You’re the one who put us away.”

“N-no. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Zayn can hear the lie loud and clear. His heart is thumping hard, and he swallows the lump in this throat. Liam’s much closer now, and Zayn fears that this is as close as he’s going to get in a long time. He can’t hear anything now except for his breathing and the occasional birdsong mixed with the quiet. His shoe catches on an uneven tile, and Liam jerks around, his eyes widening. Zayn knows the look of fear, of sheer terror in those eyes, but all Liam does is shake his head with the slightest twist of his neck, and that’s when Zayn hears it again.

Click.

The other man’s arm moves, perhaps in surprise at the intrusion, and Zayn sees, feels the past three years rip through him. If this were how it started, then he can’t have it end this way. He can’t go through absolute hell again, especially not when it’s standing before him. But in the sliver of time the thought occurs, he hears it ring loud and clear.

Bang.

He and Liam keep their eyes locked on to each other already wide as they can be. Zayn is numb with shock. His feet are rooted to the spot as he watches Liam stumble back a couple of paces, breaking eye contact. It was like the world had lost all sound for a moment, the bullet muting the ears, and Zayn’s not sure if he’s screaming. He rushes forward as Liam falls back, his knees buckling under the fear of it all, and he lands in Zayn’s lap. Zayn scours him for injuries, for the gunshot, but he finds nothing. No blood, no red seeping out. Nothing.

He looks back at the man with the gun, whose hands are at his side, and there’s a peculiar expression working its way to his face now. He coughs, a spurt of blood dribbles out, a spot of red extending quickly into a streak down his shirt from his side, and he sinks to his knees and falls face forward into the sidewalk.

An officer steps out from around the corner with his gun still poised at his target.

“Are you two alright?” he asks urgently. He doesn’t wait for an answer as he kneels down and presses two fingers to the fallen man’s neck.

Only when Liam reaches up to wipe the tears away does Zayn snap out of his trance. He slumps back and smashes a kiss onto Liam’s mouth, one that’s gratefully returned. His heart slows down appreciably, something he hadn’t noticed trying to pound its way out of his chest until just now, and he looks down at Liam with bleary eyes. He wraps his arms around him tight and two hands find their way around his own.

“Z-Zayn?” Liam whispers, breath hot and damp.

“I’m right here, babe,” he hears over and over again.

The shock fades more after more police officers show up. Zayn and Liam are led and placed in the back of an ambulance, each with a blanket draped around them. Zayn’s loosely holding Liam, arms snaked around his waist. He’s already lost Liam once, and to think he almost lost his raison d’etre again for good, he isn’t ready to let Liam out of his sight quite yet.

They barely listen to what the officer is telling them, something about the chalk outline where the man on the ground used to be, how he was an escaped convict, but they do catch the fact that they will be safe from now on, and Zayn tightens his grip on Liam’s side. On the way to the station to finalize the crime report, they sit in the back of the police car, hands intertwined. Zayn’s staring out the window, upright and rigid, barely paying attention to anything but Liam’s warmth and his mixing together. As if sensing it in the touch, Liam nuzzles in a little and whispers, lips grazing over his ear, “Never let me go.”

Zayn closes his eyes and relaxes a bit. “I already promised you that, babe.” He squeezes Liam’s hand and everything’s fine, despite the scare. Liam rests his head on his shoulder and hums a small tune under his breath and Zayn responds quietly.

_Hold my hand and we’re halfway there_  
_Hold my hand and I’ll take you there_  
_Somehow_  
_Someday_  
_Somewhere_

**Author's Note:**

> I rewrote "That I call home, I call that home" because why not. Also, this took me ages because of my schedule and I originally wanted it to be a fleshed out version of the original, but then my hands just went and about created an ambiguous, tragic ending where one of them died, but then I recently decided that'd be too depressing so I didn't do that.
> 
> So yeah. I spent a long-ass months on this fic and I wish I had someone to beta for me because I swear there were times I wanted to delete the entire thing or figuratively burn it. And it's not even as long as I'd thought it'd be. Blah.


End file.
